"A group of small communities in central Washington may be facing a very big problem."

"Doctors there are baffled by a cluster of local cases involving a birth defect known as anencephaly, in which babies are born with parts of their brain or skull missing. A study released last year by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed nearly two dozen such cases were reported from January 2010 through January 2013. This means that instances of anencephaly in rural Yakima County area are four times as high as the national estimate, ABC News points out.

Susie Ball of the Central Washington Genetics Program at Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital recently told NBC News that she has reported “eight or nine” additional cases of anencephaly since the CDC's 2013 report."